Mercedes-Benz recently made its intentions public to enter the 1-ton bakkie market in the near future, which is all very exciting. Now, the automaker has revealed that it will partner with Nissan to develop the bakkie for key markets in Europe, Australia, South Africa and Latin America. The forthcoming Mercedes-Benz bakkie will share some architecture with the new Nissan NP300 but will ultimately be engineered by Daimler to meet customer requirements.
Mercedes-Benz double-cab bakkie on the cards
The Mercedes-Benz bakkie will be offered with a double-cab and will supposedly target both personal-use and commercial customers.
Nissan is experienced in the bakkie segment with more than 80 years in the market. Apart from reducing production costs, a 5-year strategic cooperation between Daimler and Nissan will see the Mercedes-Benz bakkie become a reality. Nissan also has a hand in developing a bakkie for Renault which will be built at Nissan’s plant in Cuernavaca, Mexico, come 2016 and will also share architecture with the NP300.
The Mercedes-Benz bakkie will be built on Renault turf in Cordoba, Argentina as well as in Barcelona, Spain towards the end of the decade.
Entering the rapidly growing segment of midsize pickups is an important step in continuing our global growth path. Thanks to our well-established partnership with the Renault-Nissan Alliance, we are able to drastically reduce the time and cost to enter this key segmentsaid Dr. Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars.
*Pictured is the Mercedes-Benz Vans Concept
